


The Trouble with Secrets

by AnIdiotSandwich



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: But He's Not Fooling Anyone, Grumpy Medic Bot, Late Valentine's Fic, M/M, Wheeljack being sneaky, it's cute though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 07:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17844629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnIdiotSandwich/pseuds/AnIdiotSandwich
Summary: Valentine's Day rolls around for the Autobots and most take the day to celebrate both friendships and deeper relationships alike.However, when mysterious gifts start appearing on Ratchet's desk the CMO isn't pleased. Especially when the sender persists on remaining anonymous.





	The Trouble with Secrets

Human celebrations were still something the Autobots had yet to fully understand about their human companions. Sure, Christmas had become popular due to the whole gift exchange being a large morale booster and New Year’s was an excuse to get overcharged, not that they needed one. However, Valentine’s Day was a point of confusion for most of the mechs on the Ark.

Spike had explained it to some of them when Bumblebee had asked in the common room. Something about love and gifts and dates, human romance traditions dating back centuries to a Roman saint. It was confusing but some of them had taken it in stride and proceeded to decorate said common room in colourful hearts of every shape, size and style.

Valentine’s Day had come to the Autobots, but not everyone was happy. 

 

Valentine’s Day - Morning

Ratchet took one look at the decorated room as he got his morning energon and grimaced. The medic sat at a table to drink his energon in peace while reading his datapad. He scanned unfinished reports that Prowl had been pestering him for, they would have to be done by the end of the day.

He sighed turning off the datapad.

Ironhide sat down beside him and leant his helm on his servo, “Something the matter Ratch’?”

“Other than this human holiday being an assault on this optics?” Ratchet joked with a humourless chuckle. He finished his energon and dispersed the cube. Ironhide threw his helm back and laughed. The soldier took a sip of his own energon then answered, “It’s not all bad, keeping the young mechs happy and occupied.”

“You can say that again…” Ratchet sighed again. The twins had already tried their hand at decorating the medbay, an attempt kindly answered by a wrench and a week in the brig.

“Maybe you’ll get one of those ‘Valentines’ they’re giving each other,” Ironhide suggested goodnaturedly as the medic stood up. Ratchet waved him off and left the common room, oblivious to the optics watching him go.

XOX++++++++++++++++++++XOX

Ratchet entered the medbay to quiet. First Aid had the day off and so the CMO was the only medic on duty. The room still had remnants at the attempted decorating, mini-heart sequins littered the floor and ripped bunting clung to the ceiling. Ratchet knew he would have to ask one of the taller mechs to clean it all up, or get something to stand on to do it himself

Dismissing the thought of cleaning, Ratchet made a beeline for his office to do his reports. The door of said office wooshed open to reveal the small room just as he had left it the day before, except for a single detail. He medic raised an optic ridge at the small box placed on his desk.

The CMO took a few steps forward and sat at his desk to get a better look. The box was carefully wrapped in red paper covered in white heart and a intricately tied pink ribbon. It was no bigger than his servo. He picked it up to inspect every side of it but found nothing alluding to its contents. Ratchet then shook it gently and listened as it made a clunking sound.

He considered comming whoever was on security duty but reasoned against it. 

Ratchet looked at the box for a few more seconds then opened it. Inside of the box was a model of his alt-mode. The medic took it out to bring it closer to his face. The detailing on it was quite thorough and it seemed like a lot of care had gone into making it. Ratchet was impressed.

He looked into the box to find a note, written on a small piece of human paper. He had to bring it close to his optics to read it, ‘To Ratchet, Happy Valentine’s Day! I like your alt-mode a lot so I made this for you!’

Ratchet re-read the note a couple of times, even turned it over, but found no indication of who had written it. He placed the model on his desk and admired it. A small smile graced his face before he shook his helm and began his reports for the day.

He’d find whoever had left the gift later.

 

The day after Valentine’s Day - Morning

Having already gotten his morning energon, Ratchet entered medbay to find the room clean. He hadn’t managed to find anyone who was free to do it so it was a surprise, not an unwelcome one however.

Considering other things he hadn’t managed to do, the search for the mech who had left him the gift had also been an unsuccessful one. He had gotten off shift and spent his free time asking every mech he could if anyone had seen or heard anything about the model. Most reactions had annoyed him, more than anything else, as they consisted of knowing smirks and unhelpful comments about ‘crushes’ and ‘secret admirers’.

Human romantic habits had ruined them all.

He sighed as the door to his office slid open. There was a new box on his desk. It was larger than the first, but was wrapped the same way. 

Maybe this one came with a signed note.

Ratchet didn’t sit down this time and opened the box carefully. This one contained what looked like energon goodies, a lot of them. The medic picked one up to find it perfectly made, they all were. He popped it in his mouth. It tasted just like they did on Cybertron, sweet and rich as semi-solidified energon did when it was correctly handled. It melted pleasantly on his glossa making him release a content sigh.

He looked over the box until he found another note, ‘I figured you could use a break and something sweet! Enjoy! P.S. I also cleaned the medbay, hope you don’t mind.’

Ratchet chuckled at the wording, shaking his helm, but then frowned when there was no name on the note again. Whoever was leaving these gifts was starting to grind on his processor. He grumbled and set aside the gift before starting his duties for the day.

He found his schedule for the day, a few routine check up but nothing major. Hopefully it would stay that way. He left his office to find First Aid setting up some of the equipment. Ratchet nodded to the other mech and First Aid greeted him, “Morning Ratchet, you seem to be in a good mood. Someone give you something yesterday?”

Ratchet have him a flat look, noting the smug feeling in his field - he could just see the smirk the other was hiding - then answered, “Yesterday and today, and probably tomorrow.”

First Aid asked curiously, “So who's the admirer?”

“Your guess is as good as mine right now, “ the CMO muttered as he pinched between his optics.

Aid laughed, but stopped when the older medic glared at him. He finished setting up then leaned against the berth to question, “Are you sure? You don't have an idea who it is?”

“No, I don't.” Ratchet answered shortly as he crossed his arms over his chassis . He looked pointedly at the younger bot, “And since everyone else on base seems to know or doesn't and just enjoy messing with me, I'm starting to think this is all some kind of joke. “

“I don't think it is… “ Aid countered carefully. He was about to elaborate but Ratchet's focus elsewhere as Hoist entered the medbay for his check up.

The day after Valentine's Day - Afternoon

The morning had gone smoothly. Although, Ratchet had quickly grown tired of the small talk some of the mechs had tried to make. They just needed to learn to mind their own business. Aid had found the entire thing amusing, but kept his enjoyment quiet lest he be on the receiving end of one of the senior medic’s famous wrenches.

Since all of their appointments were finished, Aid stepped out to get their midday rations. Ratchet took the new quiet in the medbay as a chance to think about his situation.  
The gifts were wonderful, he couldn’t find fault with them. They were well-made and thoughtful. He was hesitant to consider how long they had taken to make, how much care the sender had to put into them. The thought of any mech being willing to do that for him made Ratchet’s spark stutter.

Whoever they were was going to regret it.

The medic bristled as earlier conversations flooded his processor. The other mechs had taken this as a chance to poke fun at him. They were treating him like some kind of newspark, a bitlet. Ratchet grumbled as he dismissed that train of thought, it wasn’t productive and it was just making him angrier.

He was about to head for his office when the medbay’s door slid open. The medic turned, expecting to see First Aid, and frowned when he was instead met by a nervous looking Wheeljack. Ratchet crossed his arms over his chassis with a sigh and glanced over the engineer.

Wheeljack was stood in the doorway, moving from pede to pede in an uncomfortable gesture. He was missing his right arm as well as a headfin on the same side, both of the missing parts held in his left servo. The scorch marks marking the paintwork on his chassis made it evident that he had blown himself up, again.

Ratchet gave him a flat glare. Wheeljack winced slightly before holding his remaining servo up in defeat, accidently smacking himself with his severed arm, and chuckling meekly, “Hey Doc… You wouldn’t happen to know anyone good at reattaching limbs, would you?”

“Wheeljack…” Ratchet ground through his denta. The engineer sunk in on himself. His remaining helmfin lit up slightly in shame and the exposed wires on the side of his helm sparked, making him yelp. The medic shook his helm and pointed towards the medical berth as he ordered, “Get your aft onto that berth before I change my mind!”

Wheeljack nodded quickly before dashing to the berth and scrambling onto it. He shuffled slightly to make himself comfortable before apologising, “I’m so sorry about this, my latest project was more unstable than I thought. I had my back to it for a nanoklik and… You know.”

“Boom?” Ratchet questioned flatly as he took the detached parts. Much like the marks of his chassis, the burns on the arm and headfin would come off with some cleaning so they could be re-attached fairly easily. The medic picked up his welding torch and began his work. Wheeljack hummed quietly as the other did his job. Repairs were something he was used to so the pain barely phased him, not even when the sensor ends had to be soldered together.

A pleasant quiet fell over the pair as Ratchet did the repairs on his arm. Wheeljack tilted his helm to look at the medic and asked, “Anything interesting happen recently?”

One of Ratchet’s optics twitched as he snapped, “Don’t you start that, I’ve had enough of every other mech on base poking into my business. Gossiping like a bunch of sparklings the lot of you.”

“Wait, what’s been going on?” Wheeljack questioned worriedly, his headfin flashing in surprise at his friend’s harsh tone. The medic raised an optic ridge as the mech on the berth stared at him with wide optics, clearly shining with curiosity and concern. Ratchet scowled at the engineer as he asked, “Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what? What’s been going on?” Wheeljack asked in reply. The plating between his optics scrunched in confusion.

“Someone’s been leaving me ‘valentines’ as a show of affection, and the other bots are having a field day guessing who it is. That, and getting under my plating about the whole thing.” Ratchet huffed as he set down his tools. He leant his elbows on the berth and placed his helm in his servos.

“Did you not like the gifts then?” Wheeljack asked innocently. Ratchet lifted his helm slightly to see the still curious optics of his friends staring at him. 

He sighed, thinking back to how nice the gifts had been, “No, they were perfect.”

“Then who cares what the other mechs think. It’s kind of sweet some mech cares enough about you to do something like that…” Wheeljack muttered. Ratchet processed what the other had said and found some logic in it. It made a lot of sense. However, it did little to brighten his mood and, if anything, just served to annoy him more.

The engineer yelped as Ratchet suddenly started up his torch again and began fixing his sensitive helmfin. The connection was heavily frayed so it meant that all of the already overactive sensors were tingling with charge. The medic ignored him as he worked on welding together the broken cables.

Something about what Wheeljack had said was still lingering in the back of his processor. Someone cares enough…

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he failed to notice that, despite the pained winces and occasional twitch as a sensor was painfully fixed, Wheeljack was watching him with a soft look in his optics.

 

5 days after Valentine’s Day - Morning

Ratchet grimaced at the taste of his morning energon. Despite it tasting the same as any energon he had tasted, the medic found that it was less enjoyable accompanied by the feeling of every optic in the room being focused on you as you went about your business. 

Bunch of nosy slaggers.

He sipped on his energon thoughtfully. The gifts had been getting progressively more extravagant as the days went on. First it had been calibrating and fixing the medbay equipment in a single night, which he had thought was impossible in said amount of time. Then it was a capture of Ratchet and a few of the other mechs sat around a table taken during one of their more rambunctious post-victory celebrations. After that was a well maintained example of what ratchet had later found out to be an Aloe Vera plant, a plant known for its medicinal qualities.

Then, to top it all off, each of them had been accompanied with a just as thoughtful note.

‘You work hard for everyone on base. We’d be nothing without you and your skills, which need just as good tools to work.’

‘You look nice when you smile. Maybe I’ll be able to make you smile like that at me one day.’

‘Aloe Vera is used to heal. May it sooth your spark, just as you sooth mine.’

Yet, none of them had been signed.

Ratchet ground his denta together.

The choking menace radiating in his field was enough to stave off even the more daring mech from taking jabs at him that morning. He finished his energon at that more pleasing thought. At least the mechs were still afraid of him. Not even romantic rumours could damage the gritty image he had built over breems of threatening mechs in and out of his medbay.

Ratchet chuckled to himself. He was about to get up and leave when Red Alert approached his table with a determined expression and a datapad held firmly in his servos. The medic raised as optic ridge as the security bot sat across from him wordlessly. They made optic contact before he asked, “Something the matter?”

Red Alert held out the datapad for him to take and explained, “Over the past few days the cameras outside the medbay haven’t been working correctly. At first I thought it was a glitch but when I went to fix it yesterday I found someone had been tampering with the cable connecting the cameras to the main hub.”

“Meaning?” Ratchet questioned as he scrolled through stills of camera footage. Each one was marked with time stamps of different times during the night.

“Meaning that now it’s fixed you could easily find out who your admirer is,” Red Alert informed him with a small smile. Ratchet sighed, even the bot usually too paranoid about himself to gossip about others was in on the rumour mill this time. However, the new information made his spark warm with joy.

He’d finally be able to put a name to the mech.

5 days after Valentine’s Day - Night

Ratchet sat behind his desk in the dark of his office. He had allowed First Aid to take an early leave so he had time to clean up and finish his reports before putting the medbay into standby. The medic sighed as he checked his chronometer to see it was getting late, too late for anyone to still be up aside from the night shift and maybe Red Alert.

He was in the middle of considering giving up this idea and going to recharge when the door to his office slid open. He narrowed his optics as the mech entering his office caught sight of them and went still. They stared at each other’s optics for a beat before the mystery mech wordlessly shuffled back, allowing the door to slide shut in front of him.

Ratchet yelled after the mech as he jumped over his desk. He chased them into the medbay. As they made for the door, he grabbed them by the shoulder and span them around. Their back met the metal of the door with, probably, more force than necessary but Ratchet would think about that later.

The mech against the door yelped the rough treatment. The sound was accompanied by a startling flash from either side of the mech’s helm which lit up both of their frames. Ratchet felt his grip twitch as Wheeljack’s nervous face looked back at him. He scowled at the mech in his hold and began through gritted denta, “Wheeljack, you better not be here for why I think you’re here. Because if you are....”

Said engineer sunk back into the wall, trying to make himself smaller, and winced. Ratchet’s scowl deepened at his reaction and he continued, “You’ve got ten seconds to explain yourself, otherwise I’m welding your servos together.” With that he let go of Wheeljack’s shoulders and moved away to give him space.

Wheeljack himself seemed to lose control of his lower body and slid down the wall until his aft hit the floor. He shakily brought his knees up his helm and rested his chin on top of them. He focused on the ground near Ratchet’s pedes as he spoke at barely above a whisper, “Sorry Ratch’... I don’t know what to tell you.”

“How about the truth,” the medic suggested flatly, placing one of his servos on his hip plate.

“The truth?” Wheeljack asked with a raised optic ridge and sighed at Ratchet’s firm nod in reply. The engineer curled further into himself as he went on, “I’m the one that’s been leaving you things every night.”

“That’s kind of obvious at this point.” Ratchet joked humorlessly, “My question is, why?”

“Isn’t that the obvious part?” Wheeljack asked rhetorically before answering, “I’m in love with you.”

“What? You can’t be serious,” Ratchet blurted out. He expected the other to go on to say that he was joking but when Wheeljack said nothing in response his jaw dropped. His processor stalled as he tried to understand what the other had just admitted.

No mech had ever admitted to feeling genuine affection for him before. Sure, there had been offers for solely physical relationship from both mechs and femmes alike, before and after the war began, but nothing like this. He knew that Wheeljack was serious, probably the most serious he had ever seen the engineer outside of combat.

It warmed his spark, it really did, but…

Ratchet knelt in front of his friend so they were at nearly the same optic level before speaking, “You could do better, you know. Much better than a grumpy old medic with a habit of threatening his patients.”

“But, what if I don’t want to do better? What if I like grumpy old medics? What then?” Wheeljack muttered sourly.

“Then you have some pretty awful taste,” Ratchet chuckled. He smiled as the other laughed. Wheeljack’s headfins lit up a pleasant blue and the edges of his optics crinkled sweetly as he made the happy sound. The combination of sight and sound made Ratchet’s spark stutter.

Without thinking, he raised a servo to cup the side of Wheeljack’s helm, being mindful of his helmfins. The engineer stopped laughing at the contact. They gazed into each other’s optics as Ratchet gently stroked his thumb across where Wheeljack’s cheek would be under his face mask. He felt the metal in his servo heat up slightly and realised the other was blushing underneath said mask.

Ratchet leaned closer to whisper, “Yet, I’m glad that your taste means you care about this grumpy old medic.”

“Does this mean you like me back?” Wheeljack asked softly, optics sparkling with hope.

Ratchet closed the place between them so their forehelms were touching and answered, “Seems as though my taste includes bashful engineers with a habit for blowing themselves up.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a late Valentine's Day gift for one of my friends. I hope you like it!  
> I also hope anyone else reading this enjoyed it too. Don't be shy telling me what you thought in the comments, I love hearing from you guys.


End file.
